It used to be a four-month period. Now fires are starting earlier and burning more intensely amid extreme conditionsIt’s only October, and 2021 has already been a horrendous year for wildfires in the American west. The Dixie fire leveled the town of Greenville. The Caldor fire forced the evacuation of tens of thousands in Lake Tahoe. Some fires sent plumes so high into the atmosphere that the toxic air reached the east coast thousands of miles away.Fire is an important part of life in the American west and essential for the health of the landscape, but as the climate has changed so have wildfires in the region.

After a decades-long slump, the actor’s career came roaring back with the role of Connor Roy. He talks about his 80s success, his ‘attitude problems’ and his excitement about Succession’s new seriesAlan Ruck is talking to me by video about the present, but he appears to be sitting in the past. The present we are discussing is the forthcoming third season of Succession, the wildly adored HBO series about plutocracies and dysfunctional families, created by Jesse Armstrong, a co-creator of Peep Show. Ruck plays Connor, the neglected eldest son of a media magnate, Logan Roy (Brian Cox). Like all the actors on the show – as the Guardian’s unofficial Succession correspondent, I have interviewed Cox and Jeremy Strong – Ruck has thought deeply about his character and is very eloquent on the subject. It is, however, a little hard to focus on what he’s saying because the bright and spacious kitchen in which he’s sitting bears a striking resemblance to another kitchen audiences associate with him. More than 30 years before Ruck played Connor, he was Cameron Frye, another neglected son of a cruel and wealthy man, in the 1986 John Hughes classic film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Alan, I say, are you actually sitting in Ferris Bueller’s kitchen?“Ha! No, I see what you mean, but this is my lovely kitchen. And upstairs are my lovely children,” he says in his occasionally ironic, lightly mocking tone, although that mockery is always directed inwardly rather than outwardly. At one point, he makes a fleeting reference to “a western I was once in”, and I interrupt him to say he cannot casually refer to the great 1990 movie Young Guns II as just some western. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Campaign for Better Transport calls on government to end ‘climate disaster’ of internal flightsDomestic flights should be banned and long-distance train fares subsidised, transport campaigners have urged, highlighting the relative environmental and financial costs of air and rail travel.The Campaign for Better Transport (CBT) called on ministers to outlaw internal UK flights if an equivalent train journey took less than five hours and to resist calls for any cut in air passenger duty. Continue reading...

Pacific country says it faces ‘diabolical challenges’ due to larger nations and that they play a much bigger role in controversial industryThe financial regulator of Samoa, a Pacific nation implicated in the Pandora papers as a tax haven for wealthy individuals, has defended the country’s involvement in the offshore industry and pointed the finger at “larger economies” such as the UK and Singapore for their role in it.“Samoa is a proud, law-abiding country that has suffered much due to its harsh colonial past and diabolical challenges that it now faces, such as climate change. Both calamities were brought on to us by larger countries that continue to enjoy much respect,” said Tuifaasisina Sieni Tualega-Voorwinden, the chief executive officer of the Samoa International Finance Authority. Continue reading...

Electoral commission says turnout was 41% as disillusioned youth and middle classes opt to stay homeIraqis have turned out in low numbers in a national election, with many boycotting a poll that people feared could reinforce a political system that had failed them.Nationwide turnout at the sixth ballot since the ousting of Saddam Hussein in 2003 was 41%, the electoral commission said. In recent elections, turnout has averaged just over 65%, according to non-profit the International Foundation for Electoral Systems. Continue reading...

US says it discussed aid in talks in Doha but Taliban say deal agreed that stops short of formal recognition of new rulersThe United States has agreed to provide humanitarian aid to a desperately poor Afghanistan on the brink of an economic disaster, but refused to give political recognition to the country’s new rulers, the Taliban said on Sunday.The statement came at the end of the first direct talks between the former foes since the chaotic withdrawal of US troops at the end of August. Continue reading...

A sense of nervousness and caution was mixed with relief as many retailers across the city flung open their doors for the first time in over 100 days

The Singapore government is now free to act on suspicions of foreign influence, and their targets will struggle to clear their namesSingapore’s parliament has passed a controversial anti-foreign interference bill, just three weeks after its first reading on 13 September.It was only to be expected that the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Bill, or Fica, would pass – the ruling People’s Action Party has had a supermajority in parliament for decades, allowing them to push whatever legislation they want through the House. But the concerns that activists, journalists, academics and legal practitioners had before the bill’s passage persist.Kirsten Han is a freelance journalist who runs the newsletter We, The Citizens, covering Singapore from a rights-based perspective. Continue reading...

Up to 100,000 people gathered in Warsaw alone after a Polish court ruling that raised fears of a Brexit situationMore than 100,000 Poles demonstrated on Sunday in support of European Union membership after a Polish court ruled that parts of EU law were incompatible with the constitution, raising fears of a “Polexit”.Politicians across Europe voiced dismay at the ruling by Poland’s constitutional tribunal on Thursday, which has thrown relations between Brussels and Warsaw into a crisis. Continue reading...

Nation on ‘exponential growth curve’, one expert says, with unexplained as well as total case numbers increasing

Up to 30,000 are believed to have died since the president urged police to start killing drug users – now their families want justiceOn 11 May 2017, Crisanto Lozano set off early in the morning from his home in Manila. He was going to renew his security guard licence, a requirement for his profession. By afternoon, he still hadn’t returned, nor was he picking up his phone. Then the family realised that Crisanto’s younger brother, Juan Carlos, was also missing.The next day, they heard news that two bodies had been discovered nearby. The brothers had been shot dead during a police operation. Continue reading...

Imperial War Museum London

Officers made decision after reportedly talking to Giuffre and a review of documentsThe Metropolitan police are taking no further action after a review prompted by Virginia Giuffre, who is taking legal action against Prince Andrew.Met officers made the decision to drop their investigation on Sunday, after reviewing several documents, including one relating to an ongoing US civil lawsuit concerning Giuffre, who alleges she was forced to have sex with the prince when she was 17 years old. Continue reading...

Police say that Jason Bell, 40, has been arrested on suspicion of murderA man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a woman with stab injuries died in Camden.The Metropolitan Police were called shortly before 1am on Sunday to a disturbance at a flat in Broxwood Way, Primrose Hill, London. Continue reading...

Monday: bars, retail, gyms and hairdressers reopen across NSW. Plus: the Coalition push to fast-track international travelGood morning. Millions in New South Wales awaken to new freedoms after 106 days of lockdown. Australian deportation law changes described as “authoritarian”. The campaign for Australia to donate vaccines across Asia Pacific ramps up.Bars, retail, gyms and hairdressers reopen across NSW and Scott Morrison has backed plans to fast-track the resumption of international travel as soon as the state’s home quarantine program is ready. In a Facebook livestream on Sunday, the prime minister said he had had discussions with NSW premier Dominic Perrottet about bringing forward the start date of international travel for fully vaccinated people. Continue reading...

Jonathan Toebbe and wife arrested in West Virginia after nuclear engineer makes ‘dead drop’ to undercover FBI agentA US navy nuclear engineer with access to military secrets has been charged with trying to pass information about the design of American nuclear-powered submarines to someone he thought was a representative of a foreign government – but who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.In a criminal complaint detailing espionage-related charges, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) said Jonathan Toebbe sold information for nearly a year to a contact he believed represented a foreign power. That country was not named in the court documents. Continue reading...

Fears of a political crisis as Miloš Zeman, an ally of Andrej Babiš, is admitted to intensive care unitThe Czech Republic is facing political upheaval and a possible power vacuum after its billionaire prime minister, Andrej Babiš, suffered a surprise general election defeat and then saw his most powerful backer and sole potential saviour, the country’s president, Miloš Zeman, taken to hospital, apparently gravely ill.In a stunning upset that confounded pollsters’ forecasts, Babiš’ populist Action for Dissatisfied Citizens (ANO) 2011 party finished second in this weekend’s popular vote behind the centre-right Spolu (Together) alliance, which previously vowed not to form a government with him. Continue reading...

Chronic underfunding, Covid and staff shortages blamed for increase in physical and verbal assaultsNHS staff across the UK are facing a “growing tide of abuse” including assaults from patients, which they say is being caused by frustration at long waits for care.In a strongly worded joint statement, which has been shared with the Guardian, six key medical bodies and staff groups blame patients’ increasingly long delays in receiving treatment on years of successive governments underinvesting in the NHS and not fixing severe workforce shortages. Continue reading...

An investigation into paedophile priests in France reveals an institution in desperate need of reformThe findings of an inquiry into sexual abuse and paedophilia in the French Catholic church, published last week, are difficult to read and painful to contemplate. Over the past 70 years, the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church found that at least 216,000 children were subjected to abuse at the hands of Catholic priests and members of religious orders. Sexual exploitation within the church and associated institutions, the commission stated, had been a “massive phenomenon”. Beyond immediate family and friends, the prevalence of sexual violence in the church outstripped that in any other social environment.These conclusions represent, as Pope Francis rightly acknowledged, “a moment of shame” for the Catholic church. They should also be the catalyst for far-reaching reform of its practice and culture. The French report is only the latest in a dismal, heart-rending sequence. Last year, an investigation found that the Catholic church in England and Wales had failed to adequately deal with sexual abuse perpetrated over decades by clergy and others associated with the church. It had, the report’s authors stated, prioritised its own reputation over the welfare of abuse victims. Other investigations have reached similarly damning conclusions in the United States, Ireland, Germany, Chile, Australia and Poland. Continue reading...

Education systems that treat teachers as trusted professionals adjusted better to pandemic disruption, research suggestsIf remote learning has shown parents anything, it is a renewed appreciation for the job that teachers do. Now as teachers return to school in the coming weeks, at least in New South Wales, it’s a chance to ask some consequential questions: Are the teacher policies what they should be to improve education in these uncertain times? Is teaching such an attractive career choice that there will be enough qualified teachers in all parts of this country? Can we promise that all children will have a teacher who is able to teach the complex skills and knowledge they will need in life?The short answer to all these questions is unfortunately “no”. Right now, Australia and many other countries are facing serious teacher shortages. Many teachers are leaving the profession before they reach their fifth year. At the same time the number of young people interested in becoming teachers has declined. Continue reading...

Former occupants tell of not receiving adequate help under system that contrasts starkly with elsewhere in Australia

Social media and online marketplaces have facilitated a boom in Australian home cooking businesses – but many operate without regulationDuring the Sydney lockdown I ordered from a different home cook every Friday night, for me and my neighbours. I discovered each cook from community groups or social media pages for migrant communities in Sydney – east African, Thai, English.Sometimes the home cooks had a professional social media presence, a delivery prmovider, or even a website to order from; but often my lead was just a person’s name – I’d then have to find and befriend them on Facebook before asking about a food delivery for the following Friday. Some had menus, others just asked “what do you want?” and let me pick from the full range of their specialty cuisine. Continue reading...

Outrage ensued when Zelda Perkins revealed her non-disclosure agreement in 2017 but the expected reforms never cameIn the weeks after she first broke her non-disclosure agreement, Zelda Perkins, Harvey Weinstein’s former personal assistant, felt dizzy with optimism.After an appearance on Newsnight in 2017, in which she spoke publicly about the oppressive non-disclosure agreement (NDA) she had been silenced by as a 24-year-old two decades earlier, Perkins found herself feted in parliament. The end of the use of NDAs as a means to cover up abuse was, she thought, in sight. Continue reading...

Resignation of Austrian chancellor follows Germany’s CDU crashing to its worst federal election resultEurope’s ailing centre-right is mourning the departure of a second high-profile conservative leader in the space of a month, as Austria’s chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, on Saturday evening announced he would resign over allegations he encouraged the use of public funds to buy himself positive media coverage.The fall from grace of the 35-year-old leader of the Austrian People’s party (ÖVP) comes just weeks after its German sister party failed to fill the space left by the outgoing chancellor, Angela Merkel, and crashed to the worst result in its history at federal elections. Continue reading...

Six people in ‘very serious condition’ after being rescued from wreckage of aircraft in Tatarstan

EU leaders urged to push back against No 10’s brinkmanship over role of European court of justiceFears that the UK is heading for a trade war with the EU have been fuelled by strong indications from the government that it thinks proposals to be unveiled in Brussels on Wednesday over Brexit arrangements do not go far enough.The Brexit minister, David Frost, will use a speech in Portugal on Tuesday to say that the EU scrapping its prohibition on British sausages to resolve the dispute over the Northern Ireland protocol does not meet the UK and unionists’ demands. Continue reading...

Twenty-seven allegations about officers passed on in week Couzens sentencedAlmost a third of police forces in England and Wales referred allegations of sexual assault and harassment against their own officers to the police watchdog in the days following the sentencing of Wayne Couzens for the murder of Sarah Everard, the Observer can reveal.The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) received 27 detailed referrals involving officers and serious sexual offences in the week after Couzens was handed a whole-life term on 30 September for the kidnap, rape and murder of Everard while he was a serving officer. Continue reading...

With relations frosty over Taliban victory and Pakistani repression, deputy secretary of state visits for ‘specific and narrow purpose’A senior US official visiting Islamabad has made clear to Pakistan that the Biden administration has downgraded the bilateral relationship.On the eve of her arrival, the deputy secretary of state, Wendy Sherman, used a public event in Mumbai to lay out in blunt terms the new parameters of US-Pakistan relations, stressing there would be no equivalence with Washington’s deepening ties to India. Continue reading...

The California Democrat’s new memoir, Midnight in Washington, examines his life before politics as well as his leading roles in impeachment and other dramas on Capitol HillGreat crises in American political life often produce a new hero, someone whose courage and charisma capture the imagination of the decent half of the country.In the 1950s, when Joe McCarthy terrorized America with wild claims of communists lurking in every army barracks and state department corridor, it was an attorney, Joseph Walsh, who demanded of the Wisconsin senator: “At long last, sir, have you no sense of decency?” Continue reading...

One of the team who found the 12 young footballers tells of restaging the mission for a filmIn October 2020, Rick Stanton readied his wetsuit, dive harness, cylinders and regulators. He was preparing to plunge into the underwater filming stage at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire: a six-metre deep tank, surrounded by dark walls prepared with an artificial cave passage.Stanton, along with six other British divers, was recreating the extraordinary Tham Luang cave rescue mission in which he took part, an operation that gripped the world’s attention in 2018, and which saved 12 teenage footballers and their assistant coach who had become trapped in the north Thailand cave. Continue reading...

Thank you for a really beautiful email, writes Philippa Perry. I will store your lesson away for myselfThe question I need your help. Specifically, a woman therapist’s help, in fact. Even though I’ve got a perfectly good and helpful therapist, who’s helped me a lot in the three years since I was diagnosed with stupid cancer aged 43, I’m finding that the thing I want to do is probably quite female and when I mentioned it to him, he said: “That’s what women do.”Long story short: happily married to a lovely man. No kids of my own, wicked stepmother to a 24-year-old. I was busy-busy-busy working when I got a terrible cancer diagnosis. Loads of chemo, loads of weeping. Grim prognosis. Still, I’m cracking on and writing this from a hotel on a jolly to London. Quite at peace with death, although obviously I’m sorry it’s coming so soon. It’s the living through to the end that’s killing me. Continue reading...

Announcement comes amid signs Tehran may be open to resuming stalled talks on 2015 nuclear dealIran has amassed more than 120kg of 20% enriched uranium, well above the level agreed to in the 2015 deal with world powers, the head of the country’s atomic energy agency has told state television.“We have passed 120 kilograms,” said Mohammad Eslami, head of Iran’s atomic energy organisation. “We have more than that figure. Our people know well that [western powers] were meant to give us the enriched fuel at 20% to use in the Tehran reactor, but they haven’t done so. Continue reading...

Embassy in Canberra describes former Australian PM as ‘a failed and pitiful politician’ after he raised concerns that Beijing ‘could lash out disastrously’

Court declines to dismiss defamation case against Anthony Zadravic, who said failure to punctuate social media post was trivial

CDC says 187 million people in US are fully vaccinated; About 10,000 people join protest against mandatory Covid certificates

Andrej Babiš’s populist ANO party narrowly behind Together three-party grouping in parliamentary pollPrime minister Andrej Babiš’s centrist party on Saturday narrowly lost the Czech Republic’s parliamentary election, a surprise development that could mean the end of the populist billionaire’s reign in power.The two-day election to fill 200 seats in the lower house of the parliament took place shortly after details emerged of Babiš’s overseas financial dealings in the Pandora Papers. Babiš, 67, has denied wrongdoing. Continue reading...

Lack of EU staff adding to shortages: ‘There aren’t enough to deliver care we need’Ministers are being warned of a mounting workforce crisis in England’s hospitals as they struggle to recruit staff for tens of thousands of nursing vacancies, with one in five nursing posts on some wards now unfilled.Hospital leaders say the nursing shortfall has been worsened by a collapse in the numbers of recruits from Europe, including Spain and Italy. Continue reading...

A crashed Kia Rio and a dead man found by police soon after incident in which a child was also injuredA woman has been taken to hospital after she was hit by a car and then stabbed while with a child in Cumbria.Police are investigating an incident that occurred at about 2.30pm on Saturday in the Woodend area in Egremont. Continue reading...

Mali president’s office pays tribute to the courage of Gloria Cecilia Narváez as it confirms her releaseA Franciscan nun from Colombia kidnapped by jihadists in Mali in 2017 has been freed, Mali’s presidential office said.The statement on the presidential Twitter account paid tribute to the courage of Gloria Cecilia Narváez, who was held for four years and eight months. Continue reading...

Home Office fears PM views aggressive targeting of women and girls as ‘mere wolf whistling’ amid moves to create specific offenceBoris Johnson has infuriated the home secretary by overruling attempts to make public sexual harassment a crime. This has prompted concern at the Home Office that the prime minister views the issue as mere “wolf whistling”, rather than the aggressive targeting of women and girls going about their daily lives.Sources say tensions have emerged between Johnson and Priti Patel, and other senior Home Office figures, after he blocked plans to make public sexual harassment a specific offence. Continue reading...

Man, 37, said to be killed by falling decor in set change during Rimsky-Korsakov operaA performer at Moscow’s renowned Bolshoi theatre was killed on Saturday in an accident on stage during an opera, the theatre said.The Bolshoi, one of Russia’s most prestigious theatres, said the incident occurred during a set change in Sadko, an opera by Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Continue reading...

Firestorms used to be a rare phenomenon, but in December 2019 the tiny town of Nerriga faced one of what would be many of the Black Summer seasonJustin Parr has been working frantically all morning helping to build a defence for Nerriga. He’s managed only a handful of hours of decent sleep since his 22-hour overnight firefight on Thursday, but he’s not feeling fatigued. While the volunteer firefighter has known since he was a boy it was his duty to protect his community, this is the first time the threat has ever got so close.Parr and his small brigade have just received much-needed support. Earlier that morning, a strike team with eight Rural Fire Service (RFS) trucks from towns closer to Canberra arrived, joining the three based in Nerriga. Continue reading...

Coalition partner, the Green party, demanded Kurz go after prosecutors announced investigationThe Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, said on Saturday that he plans to step down in an effort to defuse a government crisis triggered by prosecutors’ announcement that he is a target of a corruption investigation.Kurz, 35, said he has proposed that the foreign minister, Alexander Schallenberg, be his replacement. Kurz himself plans to become the head of his Austrian People’s party’s parliamentary group. Continue reading...

In 1940, thousands of the dictator’s opponents were summarily shot and thrown into mass graves. Now these are being openedTrowel-heap by trowel-heap, brushstroke by brushstroke, a skull rises from a pillow of ochre earth. Its empty eye sockets stare up at the October sky and its jaw gapes, as if still screaming, gasping for air or remembering what happened on the other side of this bullet-bitten cemetery wall a year after the Spanish civil war had ended.Between 16 March and 3 May 1940, 26 Republican soldiers, workers, communists and trade unionists were summarily tried and shot dead in the central Spanish city of Guadalajara. Continue reading...

The site of Islamic State’s last stand is now the most hotly contested pocket of the Middle EastFrom a ridge known locally as Baghouz Mountain, the most contested corner of the Middle East resembles an oasis: it’s a splash of green on a desert horizon stretching from the banks of the Euphrates to a sprawling area of new homes housing new – and unruly – neighbours.Little moves in the heat of the day. The river that has sustained Iraq and eastern Syria through the ages comes alive at night, and so does the town of al-Bukamal, where smugglers, militia members, proxy groups, mercenaries and the armies of three nations have all taken prominent stakes since the juggernaut of Islamic State was defeated here three years ago. Continue reading...

Country’s two main power stations stop working due to fuel shortage plunging cities into darknessLebanon’s electricity grid collapsed on Saturday after its two main power plants ran out of fuel, plunging much of the crisis-ridden country into darkness for at least two days.The nationwide blackout marks a new low for the crumbling state, which has struggled to source dollars to pay market rates for fuel in the wake of a profound financial collapse that has decimated the local currency and forced the economy to a halt. Continue reading...

Police appeal for witnesses after shots fired into shop in crowded part of Newham on FridayPolice are appealing for witnesses after three men were shot in a barber’s shop in east London.The Metropolitan police said officers were called to reports of a shooting in Upton Lane, Newham, just before 7pm on Friday. Continue reading...

Nine people detained in connection with the deaths in Orenburg region bordering KazakhstanTwenty-nine people have died from alcohol poisoning this week in a region near Kazakhstan after consuming locally produced spirits that contained methanol, Russian authorities said.Investigators looking into the production and sale of the illegal spirits said nine people had been detained in connection with the deaths in the Orenburg region in the southern Urals, 1,500 kilometres (900 miles) south-east of Moscow. Continue reading...